Smriti Kak Ramachandran

NEW DELHI: Power distribution company BSES’s failure to provide uninterrupted power supply to the Capital is not the company’s only fault. The company that has been issued a show-cause notice by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission for not making arrangements to meet the city’s demand has over the years failed to adhere to several directions issued by the Government, say State Power Department sources.

According to sources, overdrawing by the company, which operates as BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna, was the reason why the Delhi State Load Dispatch Centre had to pay a huge penalty for grid violations earlier this year.

“The companies did not make adequate arrangements to meet the demand for power. They were unwilling to purchase expensive power so they kept overdrawing from the Northern Grid, despite the warning and notices from the SLDC,” said sources.

“The SLDC even filed a petition before the DERC last year to direct the discom to arrange adequate power and adhere to grid discipline. The SLDC had been issued a notice by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to maintain grid discipline or face the music,” sources added.

Pointing out that no action was taken by the DERC then, sources said, BSES continued overdrawing and SLDC ended up paying Rs.2.5 lakh as penalty.

“The company decided to oppose the DERC’s tariff order in 2008; it went to the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity seeking a hike in tariffs based on documents, which the DERC submitted in an affidavit were not genuine. The DERC has disallowed Rs.533 crore claimed as expenses by the company and the order is still awaited,” sources added.

Referring to the other lapses of the company, sources said: “The Department has been reminding it to install under-frequency relays in consonance with the regulations of the Central Electricity Act. It are yet to act on this.”

Power Department officials claim that the company has also failed to comply with the directives wherein both the BRPL and the BYPL are required to have separate chief executive officers and area load dispatch centres. “The company does adhere to the planning and the connectivity code on several fronts, it has not updated the assets register and despite reminders it does not even provide system operational data to the SLDC,” sources said.

The DERC this past Friday issued a show-cause notice to the discom asking why its licence should not be revoked for a year.

The Commission can also levy a heavy penalty on the discom, which can be as high as Rs. 1 lakh for each violation, which means for every 15 minutes of load-shedding the company could be fined Rs.1 lakh.